Canadian Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)

The Debates (also known as Hansard) provide a substantially verbatim account of what is said in Parliament. They have been officially recorded since the 1870s. Previously, non-verbatim speeches were included in newspaper accounts of parliamentary proceedings.

Post-Confederation

House of Commons

Official debates contain all Members' speeches nearly verbatim. Hansard reporters do make slight changes, but only to correct poor or confusing grammar and syntax. Members can also request minor corrections so long as they do not affect the substance or meaning of what was said.

Prior to 1875, debates were published in newspapers. Journalists covering the House would normally condense speeches to no more than a third of their original length for publication. In the 1960s, the Library of Parliament took upon a yet uncompleted project to reconstruct pre-1875 debates, primarily from the Ottawa Times and the Toronto Globe.

Edited and assembled by the Library of Parliament from period newspaper sources.

Senate

Official debates contain all Members' speeches nearly verbatim. Reporters do make slight changes, but only to correct poor or confusing grammar and syntax. Members can also request minor corrections so long as they do not affect the substance or meaning of what was said.

Pre-Confederation (1841-1866)

Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada

These debates were reconstructed by historians using speeches published in contemporary newspapers. The compilers compared multiple sources in an effort to identify and mitigate the biases of the source material.